One of Putin‘s commanders used two military helicopters to transport his pet cat, according to a pilot who defected.

The animal was transported in a multimillion-pound helicopter, while the other aircraft covered for around an hour, the New Voice of Ukraine reported, citing an interview between Maksim Kuzminov, 28, a former Russian serviceman, and Ukrainian journalist Volodymyr Zolkin.

Kuzminov is set to be handed a £398,000 reward for defecting and Ukraine’s intelligence department said he is now urging others in Russia to follow in his footsteps.

When asked if there have been any irrational or illogical uses of pilots and aviation, Kuzminov said that there have been ‘numerous cases’.

He said: ‘Our commander needed to transport a cat, which had some impressive pedigree.

‘To do this, two Mi-8 and Mi-24 [helicopter] crews were assigned. So, two helicopters transported this wonderful animal, so to speak, from Rostov to Yeysk [air base] — the Mi-8 was flying the cat in, while the Mi-24 was circling to provide cover.’

Kuzminov said there were six military personnel on board and the flight took around an hour.

‘We burned a lot of fuel, resources; furthermore, the crews aren’t always allowed to rest,’ he said, adding that the Russian Air Force ‘lacks trained pilots’.

He said this was just one example of senior commanders in the Russian military who ‘live for their own pleasure’.

Kuzminov added that, in general, Russian troops are ‘left to their own devices’ and the commanders ‘never have time to deal with it — they have their own problems’.

On August 23, Kuzminov landed a Russian Mi-8 helicopter in Poltava Oblast, in central Ukraine, and handed it to the enemy.

Official sources later confirmed that this was the end point of an operation by Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence spanning six months. 

As well as the helicopter, the transfer also included spare parts for Su-30 and Su-27 fighter jets. 

Now Kuzminov insists that there are no Nazis in Ukraine, as Moscow has claimed, and he has accused Vladimir Putin of the ‘genocide’ of both Ukrainians and Russians in the war. 

Appearing on television in an interview on Sunday night, Kuzminov, who sported a black T-shirt with the Ukrainian trident on it, said: ‘The truth is, there are no Nazis or fascists [in Ukraine]. It’s a real disgrace what is happening here. Murder, tears, blood. People are simply killing each other. 

‘That’s all I can make of this and I don’t want to be a part of it. What is going on now is simply the genocide of the Ukrainian people. Both Ukrainian and Russian.’

He said he defected to take a stand against ‘genocide’ and called on others in the Russian military to do the same.

Kuzminov said it was his idea to switch sides, adding: ‘I got in touch with representatives of the Ukrainian military intelligence and explained my situation to them.

‘They offered me a deal to promise me safety, new documents and a reward.’

Two of Kuzminov’s fellow crew members did not know that he planned to fly into Ukraine and were ‘eliminated’ when the helicopter landed, said Kyrylo Budanov, 37, head of Ukrainian intelligence.

‘We would prefer [to take] them alive, but it is what it is.’

Speaking of the audacious flight, Kuzminov said he was flying near to the border with north-eastern Ukraine and got in touch with his handlers to suggest that it was the right moment to leave.

He said: ‘I flew on at the lowest possible altitude with radio silence. No one really knew where I was.’

He also noted that his commanders most likely took a few days to notice that he had fled.

Kuzminov served in the 319th separate helicopter regiment of military unit 13984 in the Primorsky region of eastern Russia.

He and his family are now in Ukraine, having been evacuated from Russia in advance.

‘We found an approach to this Russian pilot. We were able to quietly take out his entire family, and then created the conditions for the flight of the aircraft,’ Budanov said. 

‘Now the pilot feels great, he is doing well.’

China’s military claims to have new laser weapon that fires ‘indefinitely’ without losing power or overheating

By Stacy Liberatore For Dailymail.com

Published: 11:54 EDT, 14 August 2023 | Updated: 16:30 EDT, 14 August 2023

Footage has captured the moment debris was pulled from the water after an army helicopter crashed with the search continuing for four missing aircrew onboard. 

The MRH-90 Taipan crashed into the ocean off Lindeman Island, near Hamilton Island in north Queensland, at about 10.30pm on Friday.

The wreckage of the Taipan was discovered south of Hamilton Island, near Dent Island, but no survivors have been found.

The crew were participating in Exercise Talisman Sabre – joint military training between Australia, the US and 11 other ally countries. 

The son of a distinguished NSW Police officer is among the four people who remain missing. 

Specialist divers are joining other rescue personnel on Sunday as the desperate search for the four missing air crew on board continues.

Parts of the fuselage were among the dozens of pieces of debris that were pulled from the water and loaded onto a barge before they were transported back to land. 

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the crash was a ‘stark reminder’ there were no ‘easy or safe’ days for Australians serving their country. 

‘Today every Australian is thinking of the four families of the missing aircrew,’ he said.

‘On behalf of our nation, our thoughts and prayers are with the families, friends and colleagues of those who are missing.

‘Our thoughts are also with those that they serve alongside – friends, brothers and sisters in uniform who even now are aiding in the search effort. I’d also like to thank the support from other nations during this search effort’.

The crew are all reportedly from Sydney and based at the Holsworthy Barracks.

‘Sadly at this stage those personnel have yet to be found,’ Brigadier Damian Hill said.

‘It is the defence’s priority to look after those families, their members, their teammates and those that know them,’ said Mr Hill, who is the director of the Talisman Sabre exercise.

‘Our thoughts, and mine in particular, are with the missing servicemen, their teammates and their families, and especially the search and rescue teams.’

NSW premier Chris Minns added: ‘I can only imagine what they’re going through today. It’s just devastating.’ 

Two MRH-90 Taipans were flying in formation at about 11pm on Friday and when the crew of one realised something had gone wrong with the other, they immediately started a search operation.

The disaster happened during the Talisman Sabre military exercises, which includes more than 30,000 personnel, including from the US and several other countries.

The next of kin and the family of the four missing crew members were informed as soon as the search got underway.

Governor-General David Hurley said he had spent time with some of the army members on the exercise after the crash.

‘The impact of this terrible incident is being felt keenly. Each of the four missing ADF personnel made the decision to serve their nation – to serve us,’ he said.

‘We must never lose sight of, nor cease to be grateful for, the service and sacrifice of those in uniform … ‘Those that serve, their families and, especially, the loved ones of the four missing personnel are in our hearts.’

The Chief of Defence Angus Campbell spoke to reporters and offered his support to the families.

‘Defence exercises, which are so necessary for the readiness of our defence force, are serious. They carry risk,’ he said.

‘And as we desperately hope for better news during the course of this day, we are reminded about the gravity of the act which comes with wearing our nation’s uniform. This is indeed a terrible moment.’

The MRH-90 Taipan has a worrying history in Australia, with the crash on Friday far from being the helicopter’s first major incident.

Since the Howard Government bought the fleet of 47 helicopters in 2004 and 2006, they have been grounded several times and involved in multiple crashes. 

The most recent crash happened just four months ago during a night-time counter-terrorism training exercise on March 22.

The Taipan had ditched off the coast of Jervis Bay, on NSW’s Central Coast, at about 9pm after suffering engine failure – reportedly due to old software.

Australia’s Taipan fleet was grounded following the incident but was brought back into operation a little over a month later.

A Defence spokesperson at the time confirmed the helicopters would resume normal flying but with unspecified ‘risk mitigations’.

‘Defence has lifted the operational pause on MRH-90 Taipan flying operations,’ they told the ABC in April.

‘The MRH-90 Taipan fleet returned to normal operations on 6 April 2023, with risk mitigations in place (that) will have minimal impact on planned flying operations.’ 

Several industry insiders have blamed the ADF for not knowing how to maintain or operate the European-designed Taipans, rather than the helicopters themselves.

Chief of Army Lieutenant-General Simon Stuart last year told Senate the Taipans cost an astonishing $48,000 every flying hour. 

The first sign of trouble with the Taipans emerged just four years after Australia completed its fleet.

In 2010 a Taipan’s engine failed mid-flight near the Adelaide RAAF Edinburgh air base.

Incredibly, the crew was able to land the helicopter back at the base with just one engine but the incident resulted in the entire Taipan fleet being grounded. 

In 2014 the Australian National Audit Office revealed in a damning report the Taipan’s design and support system was ‘immature’ and had caused ‘significant issues’ to the ADF fleet.

It also slammed the high operational cost of the helicopters. 

The Taipan fleet was grounded again in 2019 after encountering rotor blade issues and a third time in 2020 after crews encountered problems with sliding cabin doors.  

That year half the fleet was shuttered.

In 2021 the Morrison Government began Australia’s move away from the Taipan fleet by agreeing to buy US-made Black Hawks.

The move was part of the AUKUS pact between Australia, the UK and the US announced that year.

The deal will see the three governments working more closely together on a range of defence matters, including production and procurement. 

The Albanese Government followed through on the deal following the 2022 election and agreed to pay $2.8billion for 40 Black Hawks. 

The Black Hawks, whose use in the US Military has been long standing, are manufactured by a branch of US weapons giant Lockheed Martin.

The purchase will bring an early end to the Taipan program which, prior to the 2022 Black Hawk deal, was due to end in 2037.

It is unclear whether the 47-strong Taipan fleet will again be grounded following Friday’s crash.

Saturday’s retrieval operation has been focussed in the middle of the Whitsundays passage between North and South Molle Islands, the Courier Mail reports.

Helicopters were seen carrying large pieces of debris from the site.

Navy fast boats and other vessels, including a boat with a large crane, are also involved in the search.

It’s understood the debris is being held on the warship, Brisbane.  

Defence Minister Richard Marles addressed reporters on Saturday morning and confirmed families had been notified of the incident.

‘We meet with a heavy heart,’ Mr Marles said.

‘Our hopes and our thoughts are with air crew and their families, with thoughts of the search and rescue crews as they go about their work right now.

‘These are early days and much more information is to be provided about this incident.

‘Defence exercises, which are so necessary for the readiness of our defence force, they carry risk.

‘As we hope for better news during the course of this day, we are aware of the gravity of the act that comes with wearing the uniform.’

This year’s Exercise Talisman Sabre is the 10th in the bilateral training activity between Australia and the US.

It was the largest ever, with more than 30,000 military personnel participating from 13 nations including Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, France, United Kingdom, Canada and Germany.

The 14-day exercise, running until August 4, tests large scale logistics, multi-domain firepower demonstrations, land combat, amphibious landings and air operations. 

Exercise Talisman Sabre has been paused in light of the accident.

Unidentified flying objects are being seen so often they are an ‘open secret’ among US fighter pilots,  whistleblowers will tell Congress tomorrow.

Three high-ranking Air Force and intelligence veterans will testify, under oath, about their first-hand knowledge about UFOs in a first-of-its-kind hearing in DC.

Lieutenant Ryan Graves, a former F-18 pilot with over a decade of service in the U.S. Navy, will testify that his squadron regularly detected unidentified craft while they were stationed off the coast of Virginia in 2014.

In his opening remarks, Graves will say that while most of the craft were detected on radar, they were also witnessed by pilots ‘occasionally up close’ with their own eyes. Lt Graves will say these became so common that, ‘over time, UAP sightings became an open secret among our aircrew.’

In one close-call encounter, two jets were forced to swerve out of the way to avoid hitting an object that looked like a ‘dark gray cube inside of a clear sphere,’ which stood ‘motionless against the wind.’ 

Along with the testimony from Graves, Congress will hear firsthand accounts from US Navy veteran fighter pilot Commander David Fravor, witness to the 2004 Nimitz ‘Tic Tac’ UFO.

Air Force and intelligence agency veteran David Grusch — whose jaw-dropping claims of an illegal UFO crash retrieval program operating within the classified world were made public this June – will also testify under oath.

The House Oversight Committee is overseeing the hearing set for 10 am ET.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn), who is part of the committee, said: ‘The Pentagon and Washington bureaucrats have kept this information hidden for decades, and we’re finally going to shed some light on it. 

‘We’re bringing in credible witnesses who can provide public testimony because the American people deserve the truth. We’re done with the cover-ups.’

The congressman told the Event Horizon podcast this month that ‘we’ve been dealing [with government coverups] since 1947, probably since about 1897 in what was the Aurora Texas UFO crash.

‘They [extraterrestrial craft] can travel light years or at the speeds that we’ve seen defy physics as we know it,’ Burchett said during the podcast.

‘They can fly underwater and don’t show a heat trail.’

He continued to explain that if these otherworldly beings have technology unlike anything we know on Earth, then ‘they’ could ‘turn us into a charcoal briquette.’

‘We are out of our league,’ the congressman continued. ‘We couldn’t fight them off if we wanted to. That’s why I don’t think they’re a threat to us, or they would already have been.’

The statements appear to piggyback on those made by Grusch’s claims that the US had run a top-secret UFO retrieval program for decades – and some of the ‘non-human intelligence’ discovered are malevolent and have even killed humans.

Grusch served 14 years in the Air Force, where he said he was told about the program by others involved.

Grusch is a decorated Afghanistan combat officer who went on to work for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

In interviews and classified briefings on Capitol Hill, Grusch has said that the US and other nations are also engaged in a top-secret ’80-year arms race’ to weaponize the crashed UFOs.

‘The existence of complex historical programs involving the coordinated retrieval and study of exotic materials, dating back to the early 20th century, should no longer remain a secret,’ in Grusch’s view.

Fravor, who kept his silence for more than a decade, is set to discuss the Tic Tac-shaped object in the sky of California on November 10, 2004.

‘This is not like we saw it and it was gone or I saw lights in the sky and it’s gone – we watched this thing on a crystal clear day with four trained observers,’ Fravor said in a sit-down with Russian-American YouTuber and MIT researcher Lex Fridman.

Video of what the Navy could trace of the object was leaked in 2017, and the Pentagon declassified the case in 2020. 

Burchett will lead the open UFO hearing Wednesday, which he said has been actively undermined by both Pentagon and US Intelligence Community efforts to ‘continuously block things.’

‘It’s gonna be the biggest show in town, though,’ Burchett said.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), also with the Oversight Committee, said: ‘The status quo on the part of the U.S. government has been to leave the American public in the dark regarding information about UAPs, refuse to answer questions posed by whistleblowers, avoid the concerns Americans have about the possible threats UAPs pose to our national security and public safety, and default to extreme and unnecessary over-classification. 

‘If the last few months have taught me anything, it is that this is an issue that matters to Americans. 

It also impacts the transparency and accountability our government is supposed to grant to the people who it serves. I look forward to bringing this topic to light.’

Did vaccine scientist ‘thrown to his death’ have proof of Wuhan lab leak? Chinese military expert who filed patent for Covid vaccine barely a month into country’s first lockdown died in mysterious circumstances aged just 54

•  Zhou Yusen filed a patent for a Covid-19 vaccine on February 24, 2020
• This was barely a month after Wuhan locked down due to the outbreak 
• It is said that ‘Zhou fell from the roof of the Institute’, but this is not confirmed

By Glen Owen

Published: 12:11 EDT, 17 June 2023 | Updated: 20:58 EDT, 17 June 2023

A crashed UFO recovered by the US military ‘distorted space-time’ and was ‘bigger on the inside’, claims a top attorney involved in bringing UFO whistleblowers to Congress.

Daniel Sheehan says he was told the mind-boggling tale by a whistleblower who allegedly took part in an illegally-undisclosed program retrieving crashed non-human spacecraft – and who has now briefed Senate Intelligence Committee staff.

The lawyer’s story is the latest in a series of stunning claims this week of UFOs in the government’s hands, which began on Monday with an on-camera interview of former senior Air Force intelligence officer David Grusch alleging that the US government possesses multiple crashed ‘non-human’ craft. 

The Department of Defense says it has ‘not discovered any verifiable information’ to support any of the claims.

But Sheehan has been helping bring whistleblowers like Grusch to Congress in an attempt to expose what he believes is a government cover-up of encounters with extraterrestrials.

The attorney told DailyMail.com that one alleged recovery, recounted to him by a supposed crash retrieval program insider, involved a 30ft saucer partially embedded in the earth, with some fantastical properties.

‘They tried to hook a bulldozer to it to pull it out. And it pulled out a shape like a pie slice, almost like it was part of the way it was constructed,’ Sheehan said.

‘When it came loose a couple feet, they stopped immediately. They didn’t want to destroy the integrity of the machine.

‘They had a guy go into it. He got in there, and it was as big as a football stadium. It was freaking him out and started making him feel nauseous, he was so disoriented because it was so gigantic inside.

‘It was the size of a football stadium, while the outside was only about 30 feet in diameter.’

Sheehan said that space was not the only warped dimension around the craft.

‘He staggered back out after being in there a couple of minutes, and outside it was four hours later,’ he said. ‘There was all kinds of time distortion and space distortion.’

Physicists have theorized that propulsion of an advanced craft could theoretically involve warping space-time around it to negate the effects of gravity.

But Sheehan declined to give further details – including a location and date of the incident – and said he was unable to provide evidence for the claims.

The lack of details, documents and photos are leading skeptics to dismiss as tall tales the stories of off-world UFOs stored by secret government programs.

Military intelligence officials who have voiced their support for Grusch since he came forward publicly point out that he has placed himself at considerable risk if he is lying – as all his claims have been submitted to the DoD and Intelligence Community Inspector Generals on penalty of perjury.

Jim Shell, a former Chief Scientist of the Space Innovation and Development Center at Air Force Space Command, wrote on LinkedIn Monday in support of his former colleague Grusch.

‘I will vouch for the integrity of Dave Grusch! Getting to the bottom of this is elusive and problematic, to say the least,’ Shell wrote. ‘I will assert no matter the conclusion of extraterrestrial materials or not, the DoD and IC security apparatus is in trouble and unwitting accomplices are fostering an abusive system.’

A former National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) contractor Jeff Nevin replied: ‘Same here Jim I worked with Dave for years.’

Sheehan said Grusch, 36, had given scores of classified documents, and even photographs, to the DoD Inspector General.

‘He’s given them over 100 classified documents. But he hasn’t been able to show all of them to all the staff in the Senate Intelligence Committee because some don’t have the adequate clearances,’ the lawyer said.

‘The problem is that the people who have those kinds of clearances are part of the people who’ve been concealing it for 75 years.’

A spokeswoman for Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Mark Warner declined to comment.

Like Sheehan, Grusch’s claims so far have all been second-hand, recounting what he was told by alleged crash retrieval program insiders while he investigated UFOs for the Pentagon.

But in an interview this week with French newspaper Le Parisien, he alluded to potential first-hand knowledge too.

Journalist Gael Lombart asked if he had ‘seen any exotic gear with your own eyes?’ and Grusch replied: ‘I saw some very interesting things that I’m not allowed to talk about publicly right now. I don’t have approval.’

Grusch is not alone in his disclosures, according to senior intelligence officials.

On June 3 former top defense intelligence official Christopher Mellon wrote an essay for Politico, revealing he had ‘referred four witnesses’ to the government’s UFO investigation task force, the All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), who ‘claim to have knowledge of a secret U.S. government program involving the analysis and exploitation of materials recovered from off-world craft’.

Nobel Prize nominee and CIA scientist Dr. Hal Puthoff, who worked in the government’s 2008-2012 UFO program called AAWSAP, told DailyMail.com in April that he had briefed Congress on classified information about UFO ‘reverse engineering’ programs, and knew of whistleblowers who had worked in the alleged programs.

Michael Shellenberger, author and founder of news site Public, reported on Wednesday several unidentified intelligence sources who claimed they had seen ‘credible’ and ‘verifiable’ evidence that the government or military contractors have at least 12 ‘alien space crafts’.

Public’s report said some of their sources were the same people who briefed Grusch.

‘Every five years, we get one or two recovered for one reason or another, from either a landing or that we catch, or they just crash,’ one alleged whistleblower told the publication. ‘I know of at least 12-15 craft.’

A defense contractor told Public: ‘There were at least four morphologies, different structures. Six were in good shape; six were not in good shape. There were cases where the craft landed, and the occupants left the craft unoccupied. There have been high-level people, including generals, who have placed their hand on the craft, and I would have no reason to disbelieve them.’

One gave a specific – but whacky – description of the alleged craft, saying it ‘looked like a chopped up helicopter, with the front bubble of a Huey helicopter, with the plastic windows, or more like a deep sea submarine, with a thick piece of glass bubble shaped.’

‘Where the tail rudder should have been, it was a black, egg-shaped pancake, and instead of landing gear it had upside-down rams horns that went from the top to the bottom and rested on the ends of the horns,’ the source told Public.

Engineering and military news site The Debrief, which published the first interview with Grusch on Monday, also included a quote from a retired Army colonel who worked with Grusch on the government’s UFO task force, agreeing with his claims.

‘His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct,’ Col. Karl Nell told the Debrief.

Sheehan has experience with legal wrangling involving classified material. He participated in landmark cases including the Pentagon Papers in 1971 and the Watergate break-in of 1972, and is credited with launching the investigation into the Iran-Contra scandal of the 1980s.

But for years he has turned his attention to UFOs, working closely with whistleblowers to peel back state secrecy on the topic.

He represented Lue Elizondo, who helped run the government’s UFO office until 2017, in a whistleblower complaint to the Inspector Generals of the Defense Department and Intelligence Community alleging a cover-up of military encounters with unidentified craft.

And he says he also counseled Grusch – though he does not officially represent him.

‘I had been talking with him and was working with him legally about what to do,’ Sheehan told DailyMail.com, adding that now the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) veteran was represented by lawyer and first Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Charles McCullough III.

‘They can kick some butt,’ Sheehan said.

On Friday, McCullough’s firm, Compass Rose, posted a statement on its website saying it had ‘successfully concluded its representation of former client David Grush.’

‘The firm filed a narrowly-scoped whistleblower disclosure with the Intelligence Community Inspector General (‘ICIG’) and associated personnel matters – and had represented Mr. Grusch since February 2022,’ the statement said.

‘The whistleblower disclosure did not speak to the specifics of the alleged classified information that Mr. Grusch has now publicly characterized, and the substance of that information has always been outside of the scope of Compass Rose’s representation. Compass Rose took no position and takes no position on the contents of the withheld information.

‘The ICIG found Mr. Grusch’s assertion that information was inappropriately concealed from Congress to be urgent and credible in response to the filed disclosure. Compass Rose brought this matter to the ICIG’s attention through lawful channels and successfully defended Mr. Grusch against retaliation.

‘We wish our former client the very best in the next steps of his journey.’

Grusch served as the NRO representative to the UFO task force from 2019 to 2021, and then co-led ‘unidentified anomalous phenomena’ (government-speak for UFOs) analysis for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency until July 2022.

He filed his first whistleblower complaint to the DoD Inspector General in July 2021, alleging that defense officials had failed to properly disclose UFO crash retrieval programs to Congress.

Last year’s annual military funding bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), included a new clause allowing whistleblowers to report previously undisclosed UFO ‘material retrieval, material analysis, [and] reverse engineering’ programs to the Pentagon’s AARO team without fear of prosecution for violating their security oaths and non-disclosure agreements.

But Sheehan said several whistleblowers have been going straight to Congress instead, fearing that AARO does not have the authority to investigate their claims – only having the ability to probe classified programs in the military under ‘Title 10’ authority, and not intelligence services programs under ‘Title 50’.

He said others are considering a third route which Grusch took: using long-existing federal whistleblower protection laws to report allegedly illegal UFO cover-ups first to the DoD IG, and then to staff of the Congressional intelligence committees.

Grush later filed a second complaint to the ICIG, excerpts of which were published by NewsNation this week, claiming the Pentagon had retaliated against him for speaking out.

A source briefed on Grusch’s case told DailyMail.com that he was subjected to ‘harassment’ including placing air tags in his wife’s car to monitor its movements, and flying drones over his home.

In an interview published in Le Parisien on Wednesday, Grusch was asked if he feared for his life, and answered: ‘At one time, there were threats of this nature.’

‘They tried to attack my security clearance, they made allegations of misconduct against me, things of that nature,’ he told the paper.

‘To protect the ongoing investigation on my behalf, I can’t give too many details. I think in a few months I’ll be able to.’

Grusch also revealed tantalizing new details of his claims to Congress about the alleged UFO crash retrieval program in the Le Parisien interview.

He said that ‘members of the Five Eyes alliance, i.e. Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand’ had been involved.

And he even said that the earliest recovery he learned of was a ‘bell-like craft’ that supposedly crashed in northern Italy in 1933.

‘It was kept by Mussolini’s government until 1944 when it was recovered by agents of the Office of Strategic Services [an historic US intelligence agency]. Ironically, it predates anything the public has heard about for decades, such as Roswell, etc.’

In a statement, DoD spokeswoman Susan Gough said: ‘To date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.’

The former intelligence officer who claims the US government has recovered multiple UFOs of ‘non-human origin’ has also claimed that dead pilots have been retrieved from wreckages.

David Charles Grusch, an Air Force veteran and former member of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, said the US and other nations are engaged in a top-secret arms race to ‘reverse-engineer’ alien technology. 

He made the extraordinary claims in media interviews this week, after filing a whistleblower complaint providing what he calls classified ‘proof’ to Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General.

Grusch, 36, said that in addition to recovering partial and intact extraterrestrial craft for decades, the US government has also retrieved the remains of alien pilots.

‘Naturally, when you recover something that’s either landed or crashed. Sometimes you encounter dead pilots and believe it or not, as fantastical as that sounds, it’s true,’ he told NewsNation. 

Grusch is a former member of the Pentagon’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP) Task Force, which was tasked with investigating UFOs and has since reorganized into the All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), to include investigations of objects operating underwater.

Citing witness statements from numerous current and former intelligence officers, Grusch claims that key information about recovered non-human craft was withheld from the UAP Task Force during his tenure. 

‘I thought it was totally nuts and I thought at first I was being deceived, it was a ruse,’ Grusch told NewsNation. 

‘People started to confide in me. Approach me. I have plenty of senior, former, intelligence officers that came to me, many of which I knew almost my whole career, that confided in me that they were part of a program.’ 

He says that he learned of a secret US program attempting to reverse-engineer alien technology, which was not disclosed to the task force members.

‘These are retrieving non-human origin technical vehicles, call it spacecraft if you will, non-human exotic origin vehicles that have either landed or crashed,’ Grusch said. 

Grusch said he had never seen photos of the alleged recovered craft, but that he had spoken extensively with others who had. 

In a statement to DailyMail.com on Tuesday, Department of Defense spokesperson Sue Gough said: ‘To date, AARO has not discovered any verifiable information to substantiate claims that any programs regarding the possession or reverse-engineering of extraterrestrial materials have existed in the past or exist currently.’

She added that the task force has established a process for individuals to come forward to aid in a congressionally-mandated historical review, which AARO is due to provide to Congress by June 2024. 

‘AARO is committed to following the data and its investigation wherever it leads,’ said Gough.

‘We are not talking about prosaic origins or identities. The material includes intact and partially intact vehicles,’ Grusch told The Debrief, which first reported his claims.

‘The existence of complex historical programs involving the coordinated retrieval and study of exotic materials, dating back to the early 20th century, should no longer remain a secret.’

Grusch, who served in Afghanistan and worked for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), has handed over details of the alleged operations to Congress and the Intelligence Community Inspector General.

He has also filed a complaint against the Department of Defense and claims he’s been ostracized for his decision to blow the whistle.

The 36-year-old worked on the Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Task Force from 2019-2021.

A retired Army Colonel who was also part of the UAP task force, Karl Nell, said: ‘His assertion concerning the existence of a terrestrial arms race occurring sub-rosa over the past eighty years focused on reverse engineering technologies of unknown origin is fundamentally correct, as is the indisputable realization that at least some of these technologies of unknown origin derive from non-human intelligence.’ 

Grusch said that keeping the information secret ‘further inhibits the world populace to be prepared for an unexpected, non-human intelligence contact scenario’.

The claims comes days after a Pentagon chief admitted that unidentified metallic orb UFOs have been spotted ‘all over the world’.

Physicist Dr Sean Kirkpatrick, director of the Pentagon’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), told NASA’s first ever public hearing into the phenomenon: ‘We see these [‘metallic orbs’] all over the world, and we see these making very interesting apparent maneuvers.’

Dr Kirkpatrick presented AARO’s latest findings to NASA’s independent team of scientists and other experts who have been tasked with studying the UFO phenomenon — which has become increasingly less stigmatized following several high-profile congressional hearings and military sightings.

Scientists and policymakers from NASA’s independent panel also discussed their own proposed recommendations to the federal space agency, including: an active effort to remove the stigma surrounding UAP research, as well as a hunt for alien ‘artifacts’ within our solar system.

Meanwhile, it was also revealed at the NASA hearing that the space agency will work closely with the Pentagon’s official UFO investigators on top secret UFO cases.

Dr Kirkpatrick said that the Pentagon is closely collaborating with ‘NASA embeds,’ scientists who have been cleared for work on classified UAP cases where their expertise could help military investigators identify the mysterious craft or events.

Kirkpatrick added that AARO plans to deploy ‘dedicated sensors for typical UAP’ sightings, equipment independent of the existing military defense sensors that have thus far picked up UAP evidence in the course of their normal duties.

Both NASA’s head of science, the space and atmospheric physicist Dr. Nicky Fox, and AARO’s director, Dr. Kirkpatrick, also took time to rebuke unnamed individuals for harassing members of the NASA panel.

Both said that these attitudes, online and among officialdom, have contributed to the continuing social stigma surrounding UAP.

NASA UAP study group member Karlin Toner, senior advisor for data policy integration of the FAA’s Office of Aviation Policy and Plans, recommended that the space agency work to ‘make it safer to explore data’ for any scientists facing the ‘negative stigma’ surrounding UAP.

Toner suggested that the independent panel ‘consider advising NASA to more fully assess the cultural and social barriers to studying and reporting UAP,’ to effectively work hard to end the stigma on UAP research among the scientific community.

NASA, she said, should ‘implement a plan to leverage its brand image to start removing these obstacles.’

Ultimately, however, as the chair of NASA’s independent UAP panel, theoretical astrophysicist David Spergel, described it, their group’s main purpose is to answer this one question: ‘How can NASA contribute to understanding the nature of UAPs?’

He summarized the current state of data collection efforts on UAP as ‘unsystematic’ and ‘fragmented across various agencies’ often using instruments that were fit for their security or safety mandate, but ‘uncalibrated for scientific data collection.

REVEALED: NORAD detected Russian warplane flying off Alaska during US military exercise and was forced to dispatch fighter jets to intercept

• It is unclear what kind of Russian jets were flying over Alaskan Airspace on Monday
• The announcement comes four days after NORAD intercepted six operating in the same zone on May 11
• Pentagon Press Secretary Brig. Gen. Patrick S. Ryder said that they ‘responded appropriately’ to the incident 

By Emma James, Senior Reporter For Dailymail.Com

Published: 09:09 EDT, 17 May 2023 | Updated: 11:30 EDT, 17 May 2023

Russia today threatened Britain with ‘an adequate response from our military’ after the UK agreed to supply Ukraine with Storm Shadow long-range missiles.

The missiles, which cost about £2.2million, will allow Ukraine to hit Russian troops and logistics hubs deep behind the front line in a major blow to Vladimir Putin. 

Britain had received assurances from the Ukrainian government that these missiles would be used only within Ukrainian sovereign territory and not inside Russia, multiple senior Western officials said.

Ukraine has been asking for months for long-range missiles, but support provided by Britain and other allies such as the United States has previously been limited to shorter range weapons.

But UK Defence Secretary Ben Wallace today confirmed that Britain is sending the Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine, a decision that prompted a furious response from the Kremlin.

‘The donation of these weapons systems gives Ukraine the best chance to defend themselves against Russia’s continued brutality especially with the deliberate targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure, which is against international law,’ Wallace told the House of Commons. ‘Ukraine has a right to be able to defend itself.’

Wallace said the missiles would be used to push back Russian forces in ‘Ukrainian sovereign territory’, while adding that the UK’s support for Ukraine is ‘responsible, calibrated, coordinated and agile’.

‘We simply will not stand back while Russia kills civilians,’ Wallace said.

Wallace did not say how many cruise missiles were being sent to Ukraine, but said they are ‘now going into or are in the country itself’.  

Earlier, a Western official had told CNN about the decision to supply Ukraine with the missiles, saying: ‘The UK has previously said that it will supply Ukraine with long-range weapons, this will now include a number of Storm Shadow missiles.

‘The British government has been clear that this is only in response to Russia’s deliberate targeting of civilian national infrastructure and is a proportionate response.’ 

The Kremlin said the reports would require ‘an adequate response from our military’.

The Storm Shadow is an air-launched long-range missile, designed for attacks against high value targets such as hardened bunkers and key infrastructure.

The missiles, jointly developed by the UK and France, has a firing range of more than 155 miles (250km) which means Kyiv would be able to strike deep into Russian-held territory in eastern Ukraine where the fiercest battles are ongoing.

The missile is ‘a real game changer from a range perspective,’ a senior US military official said. At the moment, Ukraine’s current maximum range on US-provided weapons is around 49 miles.

The UK’s decision to supply the missiles comes as Wallace and the foreign minister James Cleverly have been in the United States for talks on supporting Ukraine in recent weeks.

Britain and other Western countries have scaled up their military aid for Ukraine this year, with Britain saying in January it would send 14 of its main Challenger 2 battle tanks to Ukraine, a pledge that was followed by other nations including the United States and Germany.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told the Munich Security Conference in February that Britain would be the first country to provide Ukraine with longer range weapons.

The United States said in February it would provide the Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB), which has a range of about 151 km.

Asked on Tuesday about supplying long range missiles, Cleverly declined to detail specific plans but he said it was important to keep looking at ways to ‘enhance and speed up the support we give to Ukraine’.

The war in Ukraine is at a turning point, with Kyiv expected to unleash its new counteroffensive after six months of keeping its forces on the defensive, while Russia mounted a huge winter offensive that failed to capture significant territory.

Moscow’s main target for months has been the small eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, which it has come close to capturing but not quite taken in what would be its sole prize after months of the bloodiest ground combat in Europe since World War Two.

Kyiv says it has pushed Russian forces back over the past two days near Bakhmut in small-scale local assaults, but a counteroffensive involving tens of thousands of troops and hundreds of new Western tanks has yet to begin.  

‘We still need a bit more time,’ President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday.

Ukrainian forces had already received enough equipment from Western allies for their campaign, but were waiting for the full complement to arrive to reduce casualties, Zelensky said.

‘With [what we have] we can go forward and be successful,’ he said. ‘But we’d lose a lot of people. I think that’s unacceptable. So we need to wait. We still need a bit more time.’

Ukrainian forces have been training a new contingent of forces and stockpiling Western-supplied munitions and hardware that analysts say will be key to reclaiming territory captured by Russia.

The timing of Kyiv’s effort to claw back ground in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions, as well as the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, remains a question.

Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov said late last month that Kyiv’s preparations were ‘coming to an end’ and his forces were ready ‘in a global sense’.

But he also said that Abrams tanks promised by the US would not be able to take part in the offensive because they would not arrive in Ukraine until the end of this year.

The head of Russia’s Wagner private military company Yevgeny Prigozhin meanwhile accused Zelensky of being ‘dishonest’ in his BBC interview saying that Ukraine’s counter-offensive ‘is in full swing’. 

A senior Ukrainian military official said earlier this week that Russian forces had dropped back from some areas near Bakhmut after limited counter-attacks by Kyiv’s forces around the eastern city. 

Prigozhin, whose forces are on the front line of the battle for Bakhmut, admitted that some Ukrainian units were successfully breaking through in some areas.

‘The Ukrainian army’s plan is in action… All the units which have been trained, which have received weapons, tanks and everything they need are already fully engaged,’ he said.

Prigozhin is involved in a long-running dispute with Russian military chiefs over ammunition supplies for his fighters and he has threatened to pull them out of Bakhmut.

The mercenary force chief appeared to brand Putin a ‘complete a**hole’ and mock him as a ‘happy grandfather’ in a scathing video yesterday. 

Prigozhin trashed his troops’ lack of ammunition and threatened to strangle those who are preventing shells from reaching the frontline.

‘They’re collecting [artillery shells] in warehouses – why, no one knows.

‘Instead of spending a shell to kill the enemy and save the lives of our soldiers, they let our soldiers die – and the ‘happy grandfather’ thinks this is good for him.

‘If he turns out to be right, then God bless everybody… but how will we win the war, if, by chance – and I’m just speculating – it turns out that this grandfather is a complete a**hole?

Prigozhin concluded: ‘The shells give freedom. And if they don’t give freedom with the shells… if they keep holding onto them then first we need to shove it up their a*** and then throw them in jail.’

Though the Wagner chief did not refer to Putin by name, he has never shied away from criticising other senior Russian defence figures – and Putin is often referred to as ‘grandfather’ or even ‘the bunker grandfather’ in opposition circles, suggesting his rant was almost certainly aimed at the President.

Meanwhile, in anticipation of the Ukrainian counteroffensive, Russia has resumed air strikes on Ukraine over the past two weeks after a lull of nearly two months. Moscow says Ukraine has used drones to strike occupied areas and Russian territory near the border. 

Russian politicians and commentators in turn warned the Storm Shadow missiles could be used to launch attacks on targets in Russia, and lead to an escalation of the war in Ukraine. 

War hawk Colonel Igor Korotchenko, editor-in-chief of Russia’s National Defence magazine and a leading military TV propagandist, suggested the Ukrainian government would break his promises to Britain by targeting Russian cities. 

‘Do not have any illusions – the West is ready to supply Ukraine with everything except nuclear weapons, and Kiev will not keep its promises and will use these missiles to strike Russian cities,’ Mr Korotchenko said. 

Vadim Kozyulin, of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Diplomatic Academy, said Britain’s decision to supply Ukraine with the weaponry marked a ‘new round of escalation on the part of the Western countries.’

He said it is no surprise that the UK had led the supply of the Storm Shadow missiles, as he claimed Britain has ‘historically’ been ‘one of the most Russophobic countries, which always tries to be one step ahead of other ‘partners’ in activities against Moscow.’

Mr Kozyulin argued that while Kiev has vowed not to attack targets outside Ukraine’s territorial borders, the missiles may be used to hit Crimea, which was annexed by the Russian Federation in March 2014. 

‘Crimea and the new regions of the Russian Federation are recognised by Western countries as lands of Ukraine,’ he said. ‘Therefore, I think the [Ukrainian army] will attack these very regions.’ 

‘Ukraine is indeed being prepared for a counter-attack and strikes on Crimea, and we need to take this seriously,’ Mr Kozyulin added. 

Commentators in Russia were split as the extent the missiles pose a threat, as they noted Russia’s air defences had previously successfully intercepted Storm Shadow missiles in Syria. 

Dr Konstantin Sivkov, deputy president of Russian Academy of Rocket and Artillery Sciences, said: ‘Storm Shadow poses a serious threat to our army and the country, as this missile can go around the air defence zone and the actions of long-range radar aircraft.’

Diplomacy expert Mr Kozyulin said it ‘is not very clear yet’ the extent to which Ukraine will be able to ‘successfully’ use the Storm Shadow missiles. 

Military expert Yury Knutov said Russia’s will ‘adapt’ to ‘neutralise completely the actions of these strike weapons.’ He also claimed the Storm Shadow missiles are ‘nothing new’ as he described them as ‘an analogue of the Tomahawk cruise missiles, but with a much shorter range’ 

Dmitry Belik, an MP for occupied Sevastopol, said Storm Shadow would not be a ‘miracle weapon’ for Ukraine, as he claimed Russia is ‘strengthening its shield and, of course, is preparing a longer-range response capability.’

A U.S. Marine vet died by suicide shortly after a woke mob led the charge for him to be charged following a self-defense shooting at the height of Black Lives Matters riots in Nebraska.

Now, details of the incident are available and describe the shooting and how two lives ended in the incident.

On May 30, 2020, at the peak of the George Floyd protests, Jacob Gardner, a white United States Marines veteran, shot dead a black man involved in the Black Lives Matter rioter outside his bar in Omaha, Nebraska.

The shooting was described as self-defense as the black protestor jumped on his back and the vet, Gardner fired a lone, fatal shot.

Months later, Gardner was dead by suicide after a woke mob cried for his prosecution despite the fact charges were not initially filed.

Gardner was charged with manslaughter, more than a month after the shooting, and faced upwards of 95 years behind bars.

The vet faced mounting legal bills and the prospect of prison and decided to end his life.

On that May night, 38-year-old Gardner was guarding his bar armed with pistols and a shotgun while rioters, including 22-year-old James Scurlock, vandalized nearby businesses and closed in.

Gardner was holed up at the bar with his father, and when one of their windows shattered, the 69-year-old pursued the people who broke it. While confronting the group, the elder man was shoved violently to the ground, and Gardner ran over to help him.

An argument broke out where Gardner and Scurlock came face to face, and as the rioters closed in, the veteran flashed his pistol and threatened them to stay away. A woman jumped on Gardner’s back, and as he was tackled to the ground, he discharged his weapon twice.

After Gardner shook the woman from him, Scurlock jumped on his back. As the two grappled, Gardner reportedly pleaded with Scurlock to get off him. When there was no relent, Gardner pointed his gun over his shoulder and fired a single shot. Scurlock was shot in the chest and later died at the hospital.

Scurlock’s death heightened the tensions already boiling in Omaha just five days after George Floyd was killed in Minnesota.

Omaha, Nebraska, was no different and the riots led to the confrontation between Gardner and Scurlock.

In the following days, people began to turn on Gardner and villainize him for the shooting.

Further demonstrations were sparked by the killing, and protesters demanded that Gardner be charged as accusations flew that it was yet another racist murder. That included riots in various communities.

Rumors began to swirl that Gardner had a swastika tattoo and that his bar’s sign had white-supremacist imagery hidden within it and was known for turning people away at the door based on their race. People said his father had become a white supremacist while serving time in a Texas prison for drug charges.

But there were no records of his father ever serving time in prison, according to the New York Times, and Gardner’s medical files had no details about a swastika tattoo.

What was known about Gardner was that he had been given a presidential award for being one of the first Marines deployed to Iraq in 2003, and after serving he returned to Omaha and ran a successful bar, The Hive.

When the pandemic hit, he was forced to shut the bar down for weeks and was hemorrhaging money. Just before the BLM protests broke out Gardner restocked the bar with enough alcohol to gross up to $90,000 in much-needed profits, according to the Times. As riots broke out, he was desperate to defend the bar and his inventory.

Scurlock grew up poor in a largely black neighborhood in Omaha. He’d had periods of homelessness throughout his childhood, had gone to jail at 16 years old and by May 2022, he had a newborn child and planned to enroll in community college.

Videos from that night showed Scurlock vandalizing a number of businesses, including an architecture firm next door to Gardner’s bar, and evidence suggested he was the one who’d broken the bar window.

When the pair clashed that night, witnesses said Gardner had been hurling racist slurs at Scurlock and his friends, while the Marine always vehemently denied the accusation. There is video of the incident but no audio and it is unclear what anybody is saying.

Omaha County Attorney Don Kleine – a progressive Democrat – ultimately determined after an investigation that Gardner had acted in genuine self-defense and chose not to pursue charges.

Some were not pleased with the decision. One local lawyer, Ryan Wilkins, a white man who had expressed a desire to be more aware of racism, wrote a number of essays pushing unfounded claims about Gardner’s racial beliefs that went viral online.

White State Senator Megan Hunt said the decision played into the hand of white supremacists, which she claimed Gardner was.

‘White supremacist groups, including ones Jake Gardner was in communication with, rely on you thinking that none of this is a big deal so they can organize their support,’ she said.

As pressure mounted, Kleine stepped away and ceded his decision a special prosecutor appointed to the case, Fred Franklin, a black man and former federal prosecutor from Omaha.

Franklin’s office said Gardner could have been hiding armed in his bar with the hopes that he could shoot a rioter as they broke in, but that when nobody entered he pursued them out for blood.

That theory placed Gardner as an aggressor and therefore ruled out self-defense. Franklin’s office indicted Gardner for manslaughter that September.

Fearing for his safety, Gardner had left Omaha and was staying in Portland, Oregon, shortly after the killing, and when the charges were handed down, he was ordered back to Nebraska.

The morning of his flight back to Omaha, Gardner shot himself and died. Before his death, Gardner had expressed fears to his parents that he would be killed in prison and the family would be bankrupt by a defense trial.

A year after his death, Gardner’s parents sued the county and Franklin. They cited Franklin’s comments about the incident, which they called misleading, and said they led to their son’s suicide. 

The lawsuit was tossed shortly after it was filed.